


Roma Aeternum: Maxson's March West

by RiverDelta



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas, Original Work
Genre: Gen, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Nuclear War, Pseudohistory, Texas, Tribals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2020-12-24 08:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 18,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21096440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverDelta/pseuds/RiverDelta
Summary: These are the disparate voices of a new world crawling out of the ashes of the old. The apocalypse is over in California, but the newest and biggest power struggle has just begun. From the Hubologists to cargo cult communism and a pre-War city that survived too well, these are the tales of the wasteland.The truth is that, sometimes, war does change.The rattling of Brotherhood Vertibird blades attests to that.





	1. Introduction

"When the people of Romani Americae fought against the Bear, they did so in barbarism. We lived in backwards tribes, bound to Caesar's will. Our people aped Roman greatness, but they did not attain it. It was good that our tribes were integrated, but Caesar's leadership was unsubtle and destructive.  
  
"History itself has shown that Caesar, son of Mars, was intelligent and every bit as blessed as his name would imply. However, he also failed to integrate many of the lessons of Rome. In Caesar's day, Rome's existence was a closely-guarded secret. Caesar's national myth did not permit the idea of a model.  
  
"The Legion, such as it was, was an army more than a state. We know well that Caesar intended to rectify this - taking New Vegas as his new Rome. He failed. Ironically, the New California Republic aped the substance of Rome, if not the style, and the NCR watched while the Legion crumbled.  
  
"The Legion crumbled, yes, under the mismanagement of Caesar Lanius. Rome did not. The tribal cultures had integrated with the forced Legion culture, and cities like Flagstaff and Two Sun were as Legion as they came. The New California Republic, unable to annex all the territory, encouraged a central New Roman culture based on less offensive aspects of their culture in order to prevent internal wars and allow for NCR development in the area.  
  
"Roman America - Romani Americae in our tongue - became the NCR's backyard. Then, in 2301, the envoys from the Brotherhood of Steel arrived in the East. Our saviors had come, and Rome would arrive once more."  
  
**\- Telestis Muncius, Recent History**  
  
  
  
  
  
"When I came to Austin, I was astonished at what I saw. It was as if I had returned to pre-War America, lock, stock, and barrel. The cities were shining, the women wore pristine dresses and the men sweater vests, and they even made their own movies for the theaters. The tribal slaves worked the massive yards outside the wall of car wrecks that marked the city proper. The Austinite white flags with singular black stars hung from the lampposts with patriotic glee, and the laser batteries that had once saved the city now pointed down at any enemies.  
  
"I asked my handler how the Austin Star had preserved itself. He told me something that sounded like an elementary school story, so I went to a public library (public libraries!) and found that old-world corruption had pushed for useless anti-air laser batteries to make money for old-world arms companies. I learned that the last days of the US had led to police overmilitarization - especially in the Lone Star State. This corruption and paranoia gave Austin an army.  
  
"I learned that the Austinites had tried and failed to assist their surroundings, and created a remnant of Old World culture, if not Old World technological splendor. This was, of course, based on the backs of slaves, most tribal and some Austinite or Roman. At the very least, Austin and its subjugated lands were a shining beacon of American values in a blasted Texan waste.  
  
"Sadly for myself and the other Enclave refugees who had heard of and fled to the area, it was not to last. A victorious but destructive war against the Texan Roaders and Hell Legion, and an even more bloody one against the AI Santa Anna's Ejercito Mexicano and the Republic of the Rio Grande broke Austin. The NCR imposed a new, 'democratic' leader, and declared the Austin Star's previously loosely-held sphere a protectorate of the NCR.  
  
"Now, Austin is a battleground between the NCR, the Mexican factions, and Maxson's Legion. For my part, I find Santa Anna's place to be acceptable."  
  
**\- "An Interview with Jonas Lang, Enclave Remnant", Reggie Vice**  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Honestly? It was amazing. We came out West thinking we'd be fighting barbarians and raiders. We did a lot of that, but we went far enough West to find this massive culture of tribals looking for a leader. So many of them just wanted power, wanted respect, wanted a purpose.  
  
"In other words, these 'American Romans' wanted a brotherhood. Maybe their culture has changed those of us this far West, but we've definitely changed them. Not all of them are brothers or sisters, but every day we get more and more. Every day, more of them swear fealty to Caesar Maxson.  
  
"We gave them structure without rape, service without slavery, and battle without primitivism. The Brotherhood out here has increasingly become a legion, I'm aware of that, but that might be what these people need. Even if we have to translate the ranks into Latin."  
  
**\- Quote from Paladin West**


	2. Ad Victoriam!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The flag and the Brotherhood members from the Romani Americae, explored through glorious quotes!

"I had heard the stories from my parents about their time in the Legion. It scared me, yes, thinking of my friend Mara turned to a breeding slave or Titus sent to die holding nothing but throwing spears. Still, I heard about people fighting mass wars, not tribal skirmishes. I heard about a great man who did great things, who created something only to die before it could burn. We lived in the Sand Eaters tribe, where little boys would make other little boys eat gravel at the play fields.

"I remember seeing the worn padded armor the Legionnaires wore. A Follower of the Apocalypse who worked in distributing canned food told me that when I put the helmet on I needed to take it off. He said that that was a bad regime who did bad things and hurt a lot of people. I asked him why they did it. He told me that they believed in one man and that one man was smart but a liar. He told me that it was something that needed to be put in a museum.

"I felt him take off the padded helmet, and went home to cry. Our people were learning to cry again, after the Legion. In the Legion, if men cried, they were given beatings or dismembered. So we felt happy, in a small way, when we cried. I remember this conversation with the Follower so deeply, back in 2305, because the next day I met a scout from Two Sun. He told me legends of a group of warriors armored like the Legion, who used the Legion's language.

"_Ad victoriam. _To victory - a phrase we all knew. I told the scout that he was a liar. Then, in 2309, they finally came. The Brotherhood of Steel. They called themselves the Eastern Brotherhood, or the True Brotherhood. I learned when I joined up that they had little sympathy for their forebears who still lived out West.

"I saw their armored - not power armored, only the Paladins - tribal recruits marching in a square. Their flag was displayed proudly. They chanted 'ad victoriam, ex machina', and I was struck by it. My Legion had come."

**\- "An Interview with Dirt Runner", Lewis Oakes**

"I was in the Legion. I gave my life to it. The Legion, as you and I know it, was not the Brotherhood. I hesitate to say the Brotherhood is good. They fawn over Caesar Maxson the way we used to. Still, the many children and former Legionnaires who have wanted to enslave themselves to these foreigners is a genuine problem.

"When I was a young man in the tribe of the Riverlanders, I saw a man in a neat uniform walk up to our chieftain's dwelling. He spoke an accented version of our local tongue, and promised us glory under Caesar, son of the True Gods. He drew a combat stick and pulled its trigger, blasting a cactus to bits as if to display us his skill. He said the women were beautiful, and we could have our pick of them.

"I was the fool who joined the man in the neat uniform. When I came to the closest Legion camp, I found that it was all a sham. The women were fine, yes, but their looks of terror and glassy-eyed stares killed any interest I might have. Training consisted of fights, bloodletting, and at times the whip.

"The barracks were hardly better than the Riverlander communal homes, but the men in them were afraid. Afraid men are violent men. I was not the only man from my tribe, but I was the only man who by the end of the Legion called himself a Riverlander. They burned our effigies, destroyed our homes, and shot our medicine men and wise women.

"In the Legion, we either became Legionnaires or we pretended to be. No other options existed, and the Frumentarii were skilled in finding the fakers."

**\- "An Interview with Kvamix Osk", Dwight Copeland**

"I became a huntsman for the Free Riverland Province and was one of the few such huntsmen in Nova Roma to keep my name. They called me 'barbarian', and 'profligate', even when I told them I fought to uphold the stability and culture that they so desired from their dead Legion.

"It was funny, then, that when the killers from the East came to trade cigarettes, bullets, and the odd laser weapon, they didn't care so much about barbarians and profligates."

**\- "An Interview with Kvamix Osk", Dwight Copeland**

"I genuinely was confused by my comrades when they talked about things like 'duty', 'honor', and their 'righteous mission' to secure technology and spread prosperity. They talked about the end of the world coming from too much technology. I was surprised. When I was growing up, the Californian Follower told me that it was low technology and barbarism that was to be feared.

"However, the bunks were serviceable, my friends of both sexes were compassionate, and my commanding officer was respectful. I was not always 'on-board', as they said. My command of English was broken, and when we murdered a group of tribals for simply living out of a Vault-Tec Vault, I talked to the chaplain about my conscience.

"They said that the technology needed to be secured. They told me about something called the Institute. To this day, I don't quite know what it was or why all of the Easterners seemed surprised that us Roman Brothers weren't so angry about it. All I did know was that it was a group of people who created false spirits that looked like humans, and that they lived underground.

"I assume they lived in caves."

**\- "An Interview with Dirt Runner", Lewis Oakes**


	3. Hubology!

"As an anthropologist and linguist, my assignment was to learn the dialects of the Grand Canyon tribes. What a fucking waste of time!"

**\- Allegedly said by Primum Caesar (Wasteland Latin), also known as Edward "Caesar" Sallow (English)**

"Frankly, it was appalling hearing that the Hubologists had gotten their stinking claws into the Roman-West Protectorate. The tribals in the area represented little of worth. I ran the calculations. Without the Legion, these tribals were little more than primitives aspiring at being historical re-enactors. I have no special sympathy for them, even if perhaps their societies are more original in concept than the Second America or Sallow's ego trip of a project.

"Still, I do not mention favorably the tribals of Romani Americae out of some misplaced sympathy for the 'noble savage'. The problem comes from the fact that having been freed from Caesar's yoke, and only partially having integrated under the looser yoke of the Prussians from the East, they are not knowledgeable about the con games of civilized people.

"This means the Hubologists need only use complicated acronyms and nonsensical cadence to try to appear knowledgeable. They tactically merge their teachings with those of their victims as necessary. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: Hubology is a pyramid scheme, not a religion. The problem is that they are introducing their pyramid scheme to societies who haven't so much as invented paper currency.

"It's shooting fish in a barrel, and I don't like such a fundamentally stupid concept getting enough money to play little games outside of their offices in San Francisco. Do I think the Hubologists are going to convert the world? Of course not. What I do think, though, is that a lot of AHS-9s and AHS-7s are going to pocket a lot of money, run, and Romani Americae will be as poor materially as it will be spiritually. So, no, with all due respect, investing in the Tribal Outreach Organization would be a mess, and I don't intend to ruin an area ripe for expansion just to satisfy some con artists."

**\- "2311/4/14 - Letter to [Marjorie]", Robert Edwin House**

"If one wants to see what the liberation of the Roman people look like, _amicus, _one should examine the sufferings waged upon the people of the western tribes at the hands of the Hubologists. They deny the great Mars and his teachings, force women out of their necessary role as brood mares, and claim that Caesar was no hero, let alone a god.

"I am a simple man, but I am a man who devoted himself to a cause. When we fought as a legion, we did not fight on condition. We did not fight in such a capacity that we could revoke it at any moment. We fought as warriors. We fought as agents of the divine will. We fought as honorable men defending the great tribe, the Legion.

"The Brotherhood is misguided and will suffer as such in time. I have no doubt their decadence and denial of natural law will lead to their collapse. However, the Hubologists from the West are a symptom of the disease of Californian femininity.

"These Californians embrace a faith which is about trading currency. Their denarii are not payment for just blood shed. They are instead mere notes handed to a man who can fool his followers with nonsense about the great wheel of the universe and of 'scientific spirituality'.

"This, like every other form of addictive 'science', corrupts and weakens its users. The people of old used science to fight their battles. We must be men and use blood. For my part, I will warn my family and friends against these Hubologists. They are but the mouthpieces for the New California Republic, and all it represents."

**\- "Interview with a Legion Man", Barry Gossamer, interview of Nonus Palpellius Tanicus (Former Prime Legionary)**

"The Tribal Outreach Organization represents an incredible opportunity for the Spokes of the Wheel. Those Spokes' endless service in the name of the Star Father is essential, and any method that promises _more _Spokes, and _less _Rim Meat to be ground is necessary.

"For all those who believe in that great teacher Dick Hubbell, we must understand that conversion simply is not happening in desired rates in the NCR proper. The people of the NCR follow various faiths, such as Christianity, the rare New Caananites, the slightly less rare followers of Mars, and other, scattered faiths.

"These faiths are all lies. Perhaps they have within them a hint of truth, but many things have a hint of truth. Those hints have been assembled and distilled into Hubology proper. We accept no substitutes. Yes, these tribals often have complicated or traditional faiths or spiritual practice.

"Yes, they often pray to distinct gods. They are also scientifically lacking. Just as the old missionaries used modern science to convince natives of their faith's truth, we too must work to set these tribals on the straight and narrow. The Star Father demands no less.

"Now, there are some Oppressive Persons who might tell you that you're being manipulative, or uncaring. They might ask, 'Surely, if Hubology is right, we don't need to convert? Weren't we previously more lax on other religions being incorrect?'"

"That's a fair thing to ask, but it's a sign of an Oppressive Person. You would lie or cajole somebody if it meant saving their family, right? Of course you would. Similarly, Hubology teaches that the Hub, in his brilliance, gave us a path to cleanse everyone of Neurodynes so as to obtain enlightenment.

"It would be unethical to deny some poor, suffering tribal enlightenment, wouldn't it?"

**\- "Seminar for New Outreach Officers", Wade Spinney-Baker**


	4. A Tribal in Shady Sands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A philosophical tribal from Tempe, Arizona reflects on life in the vastly different NCR.

**Journalkeepers:**  
Hive-Child of Tempe (Transcribed by paid scribe Jonas Vey)  
4/4/2311  


I do not understand these people. I would like to think that I am not stupid. I have been treated as such by 'civilized' people ever since I left the Scarlet Cradle. They dress differently, and largely lack tattoos or scarification. I find this unusual, but I could learn to live with it.  
  
No, the problem I find with these people is that their mannerisms are incomprehensible to me. My people hold goods in common. These people guard theirs jealously. My people have many roles for many people, these people seem to only have two.  
  
My people believe in the force of the _Dyalek, _the binding of history through which all things can be understood, as found in the holy books of the Dead Man Sage. These people call him 'that commie bastard', and they look upon my Old World uniform with distaste.  
  
I must stress that I do not value whatever society once existed in Old World Sina, but my tribe treats their remaining artifacts with reverence. Mine is a recreation, of course. At any rate, the people of Shady Sands live differently than I would assume people should live.  
  
They live in boxy hives with many floors. Perhaps this explains why these people seem so disconnected from one another. Perhaps if you cannot see another person, you are likely to feel less sympathy for them.  
  
They bend down to talk to me, look at my red snake hand paint with confusion, and treat my use of Red Serpent phrases and illiteracy as signs of stupidity. I get the question 'are you a boy or a girl', as if I am a child. In such circumstances, I have grown tired of explaining things. They also ask why I do not use contractions. The Tempe creole does not commonly use them, I explain.  
  
There are strange devices in this city. Instead of the Brahmin that I have seen in the wastes, there are great engines of metal. I am told they are called 'automobiles', and are vaguely similar to the 'cars' of the 1930s'. I do not understand why these people simply do not walk.  
  
To be fair, it is of course natural that in such a large city people will need to not walk, but then perhaps one should not create such large cities. Similarly, these foolish people create bright lights, which exist so that they can drink and work late. The sky lacks stars at night. It is just black.  
  
I find in this city qualities that the Dead Man Sage described as the final stage of decadence. It is the spiritual death of the people, where their very life essence is ripped out from them to fuel the obliteration of all souls. The people slave away for jobs that they get no direct benefit from, but they seem to praise this broken and backwards society. 'It's not perfect, but the NCR is a helluva lot better than anything else out there', they say.  
  
They ask me why I speak with this accent. I do not see it an accent. They do. Recently, I have had to get my NCR permits renewed. This was an odd process, as if I were playing some childish game with foolish young ones. They ask me to give printed scraps of paper to them - five tens - and to sign my name on various pieces of paper. To get the pieces of paper to sign, I had to wait four hours and trade the printed scraps over to a clerk.  
  
I had to explain to the clerk that I did not know how to write, and so instead I was allowed to draw a circle on the line. It was pointed out to me that I was obligated to check one of two boxes - 'M' and 'F'. I did not understand what they signified, and so I asked. I chose the box that I found least uncomfortable.  
  
It is these sorts of waiting and transactions that made staying in Shady Sands so resemble the Dead Man Sage's description of his final stage of decadence. I prefer to work out in the wastes. The Crimson Caravan having to have me return to the NCR to wait for new equipment and such is getting annoying.  
  
My _kemmera, _or friend, Harlan, could not even tell me so much as where he got his flour, sugar, and eggs for his cake he made for my squirming day. He told me he had purchased them at the store. I asked where the store got them. He shrugged and said 'farms, I guess'.  
  
To me, that sounded like madness. However, the more I think about such things, the more I feel a sense of confusion and fear. I feel as though my society is becoming obsolete. It is clear that the NCR's 'final age of decadence' is larger and more prosperous than anything any of the tribes could create.  
  
However, I also feel that this society is not 'primitive kommunizmus', as the Dead Man Sage wished and taught and as our pre-War 'student' Elders believed. I hear stories about metal birds from the East carrying men in invincible armor.  
  
Am I a relic?


	5. The Dying Brotherhood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked me about where Hive-Child was from, so here was my quick response:
> 
> They're from the city of Tempe, Arizona. Specifically, the ruins of the Arizona State University - Tempe campus, where the remains of a student communist cadre managed to survive due to being out of the way and being lucky. When the bombs fell, the students had to take in children from outside of campus, and the students tried to pass on their knowledge and their many, many books. Give it three hundred years, and you have the Red Serpents tribe.
> 
> I wasn't really sure how to clarify that in-universe, since it'd probably be lost information. In the future, I might do little 'culture profiles' or something, but I doubt it.

> > ROBCO INDUSTRIES UNIFIED OPERATING SYSTEM  
COPYRIGHT 2075-2077  
\-- Server 9 --
>
>> > Ultra-Luxe  
> Gomorrah  
> Tops  
> RobCo  
**> Messages**  
> NCR
>> 
>> A Desperate Letter to Mr. Robert Edwin House, CEO and Sole Proprietor of the New Vegas Strip  
From Elder Nolan McNamara
>> 
>> I understand you are not a man who is fond of our brotherhood. However, this is a desperate time, and as they say, such desperate times require desperate measures.
>> 
>> I have long been uncomfortable with the way that the Lost Hills bunker has become irrelevant. It would not be an exaggeration to describe the Californian Brotherhood as merely an extension of the New California Republic.
>> 
>> In the Mojave, we have tried to strike our own path. I know you dislike that, for reasons that are understandable but I find fundamentally untrue. Regardless, the Mojave Brotherhood is dying. California is prosperous but it is unable to follow our values due to the ultimate authority being in the hands of President Crocker.
>> 
>> I do not think that President Crocker's ascension was a problem. President Cassandra Moore, had she lived, would be far less amenable to leaving the California Brotherhood breathing room. However, the very existence of the NCR as the _de facto _superior organization to the Brotherhood is the issue.
>> 
>> For the sake of this conversation, let's consider the Californian Brotherhood effectively dead. As a cell, it has failed to follow its directive. They aren't safeguarding technology.
>> 
>> What about my Brotherhood, then? What about the Mojave Brotherhood of Steel? They are dying too. We have not adulterated our ranks the way the Easterners have, and for that we are paying the price.
>> 
>> Larger powers with cheaper weapons have made us almost as irrelevant as the Californians.
>> 
>> Then, there is the Texan Brotherhood splinter of 2154, who went rogue in Odessa. They split, some of them becoming Austinites and some of them participating in the greatest terrorist attacks and killing sprees in Austinite history.
>> 
>> Yes, we are both dismissive of Austin. It was Nuka-Town USA with no small amount of traits suited for a tinpot dictatorship. However, until their humbling, Austin was a notable player in central Texas, and whatever the Austin Star was doing to its enemies or its people must've angered the Texan Brotherhood somehow. Now, the Brotherhood in Texas is gone and Austin has been humbled.
>> 
>> The Texan Brotherhood is dead as well.
>> 
>> However, there is one Brotherhood that is rising - one that is a monster that you and I surely find equally repulsive. The Eastern Brotherhood of Steel and their tribal cannon fodder represent the Brotherhood without its virtues.
>> 
>> Leader worship without thoughtful reverence. Bloodlust without valor. Technology without restraint.
>> 
>> They take soldiers and train them from adulthood. Yes, the odd outsider who is sufficiently legendary has been able to make it into our ranks, but that is not comparable to the waves of untrained bodies that the Easterners send towards us.
>> 
>> "Elder" Arthur Maxson believes that he can keep technology safe by using it recklessly to claim as much as possible. He wants to avert the tragedy of the past, but he does so by simply creating an army.
>> 
>> His predecessors defeat the Enclave and obtain from them vertibirds, and what do they do with them? They go on a conquering spree and recruit raiders and addicts.
>> 
>> Eventually, Mr. House, the East Coast "Brotherhood" will be little more than a Legion with more advanced technology and a different set of flags.
>> 
>> I feel nothing less than hate for this construct, and I'm terrified of what might happen if they are allowed to define what the Brotherhood of Steel is.
>> 
>> As such, I wish to offer you the Mojave Chapter's formal aid. Feel free to send a securitron or eyebot - I have ordered my subordinates not to shoot. The password is 26-A-LQ. Say it at the door.


	6. The Railroad and Vitruvian Insurrections

"The Brotherhood of Steel has never been good about espionage. We are able to do it to some degree, primarily through scribes, but that is not the role of those officers. Until recently, the True Brotherhood has not needed to engage in spycraft or detective work. Our enemies have been unsubtle - raiders, the Enclave, and so on - and the stealthy Institute was thwarted by the robot which figuratively keeps watch over all of the Northeast Zone.  
  
"However, the moral atrocity which the Railroad represents required more subtle tactics. To storm their hideouts and eradicate their nightmarish corpse-machines, we had to find out where those hideouts were. It took unlikely allies to figure out where these people were operating from. The Operators, a two-bit gang from Nuka-World, were loyal only to cash and surprisingly effective. Scribes and Operators worked together to track, identify, and annihilate Railroad strongholds.  
  
"Plasma barrages and traditional ammunition were then employed. I should note that the breaking of the Nuka-World raiders came soon after this. The Pack and Disciples were hung from the park's lamp posts, while the Operators were bound to the service of the Brotherhood of Steel by the sword. The other parks of Nuka-World, most notably the Galactic Zone and Safari Adventure, were dubbed not worth cleaning out. Those two parks make up the Seventh Northeast Exclusion Zone.  
  
"Meanwhile, the ghouls in the Kiddie Kingdom were ripped apart, with their disgusting 'leader' being set ablaze by flamer so he could watch his nightmare die. However, I digress. As for the Railroad, their use of Synths meant that even when we could find their isolated cells, they also were able to feign humanity. This led to their spy work and clandestine nature surviving for quite some time.  
  
"As you may imagine, relying on raiders to act as spies was a bit of a mixed bag, and to this day the Railroad continues to propagate the spread of these deadly entities. The eradication of Railroad operatives continues to this day. They even have been known to occasionally infest our own ranks, so frequent Synth trials are necessary. However, with the fall of the Institute, the creation of Synths has been stopped, and our valiant efforts have allowed us to decommission more and more of the wretches."  
  
**\- "The Paladin's Primer", Scribe Ezoi**  
  
  
  
  
"If you're reading this, I'm already dead. I know that the only survivors will be the children - the enemy does not target them commonly - so I will write this in as clear prose as I can. My name is Z1-99. You know me as Ivy Stassney. I was your adopted mother and your best friend. I fed you ground chunks of radstag on good days and radroach on bad ones. I was also something called a Courser.  
  
"A Courser is a special Synth who used to find other Synths and bring them back to the Institute so they could do their job. The Institute was a nice place to live, until the bad people decided to destroy it. Those bad people are named the Brotherhood, and they're very violent even when they don't have to be. They hated the Institute because they didn't like Synths, so they killed as many people in the Institute as they could.  
  
"In the Commonwealth, there are only two groups who are trying to keep people like me safe. The first is the Railroad, and they believe in brainwashing their Synths so that they can't be found. Brainwashing is when you kill someone's brain so you can save their body. It isn't good. There's also the Vitruvians, though. The Vitruvians are a group of Institute loyalist Synths, Coursers, and the few human members of the Institute who fled before the bombing.  
  
"I know 'Vitruvian' is hard to read, but it just means the symbol that they used to use. We have had to make alliances with the people the Railroad won't or can't. Raiders, tribals, even corrupt members of the Brotherhood. We believe in opposing tyranny, promoting the use of less advanced synths for doing jobs people don't want to do, and keeping the spirit of the Institute and its scientific inquiry alive. If you can't flee the Brotherhood or the tribes and states which it controls, see if you can find the symbol of the eight-limbed man."  
  
**\- "Note From Ivy Stassney", Z1-99**  
  
  
  
  
"Any agreements with the Vitruvians should be dismissed out of hand, despite what some of the rest of the Railroad Committee has said. The Vitruvian couriers come every so often, yes, but they represent everything we oppose. They are essentially the continuation of the very organization we spent all of our efforts freeing people from. They regularly commit bombings against civilian cities and settlements, treating their synths often as just tools to destroy their enemy.  
  
"They do not respect our values, they simply hate the Brotherhood. That is understandable, as the Brotherhood is completely divorced from reality, but it still means they are untrustworthy. An organization based on freedom cannot work with an organization based on slavery and the lionization of a state that deserved to be destroyed. Perhaps the killing of the Institute was the most moral thing that the Brotherhood did.  
  
"I am tempted to say the general policy should be to eradicate Vitruvians on sight but for the moment I think we should save our bullets for the greater threat to Synth kind. Our job is to ferry Synths out of Brotherhood territory and sabotage the Brotherhood intelligence arms and system as much as we can. Our job is not to re-enslave Synths to another master. Were the Vitruvians ever able to carve out the Synth Free Territory that their pamphlets go on about, it would be a nicer form of inhumane control - Coursers, not Directors, but the same idea. The twenty dead men, women, and yes, children of the Rivet City Bombing did not die so that we could betray humanity and Synthkind."  
  
**\- "No, We Shouldn't Work With The Vitruvians", Ophelia**


	7. The People's Republic of Austin

ROBCO INDUSTRIES UNIFIED OPERATING SYSTEM  
COPYRIGHT 2075-2077  
\-- Server 9 --

> > Austin Public Library  
> Operation Goldblood  
> Operation Tealblood  
> Civilian Science Funding  
**> Operation Candy Corn**  
> Central Texan Republic
> 
> Project Cavalier, Operation Candy Corn: Summary and Directives [Encrypted] - A Guide for Interns to Managers and Researchers (Dr. Secundia Camerius)
> 
> Thank you for reading this guide. It may well save our society. This is written for even the lowliest intern, so one should expect clear language. The Austin Star, as we know it, is in jeopardy. Even as the Hordes from the North have shattered, the armed mobs from the West and their bastardized society come to erase everything we stand for.
> 
> Even now, the Central Texan Republic under Michael Flood is spewing NCR talking points. Like the ventriloquist dummy he is, he jabbers nonsense about freedom, liberty, democracy, and the rule of law. He talks about abolitionism - stealing the very institution that made the Austin Star able to preserve our pre-war values.
> 
> It is only a matter of time until our work here at Lady Bird Lake is exposed. They will not understand why we did what we did. They will not know the necessity of preparing new soldiers and new weapons for war against the Hordes from the North, or against the New California Republic and their expansionist policy. When they raid Lady Bird and they find the necessary ruins of the defense of civilization, will they see it for the shield it was, or will they call us 'monsters' and 'savages' and use it as an excuse to steal our political institutions and extend their reach?
> 
> When they find papers talking about admittedly crude cybernetic research, the mixing and synthesizing of chems, and the use of slaves and tribals as test subjects, they will not see it in the context it requires. They will not see us preparing bullets in case of an attack on the part of our dangerous neighbors. They will see us as being 'evil', for to them everything they oppose is 'evil'.
> 
> As such, the process of integration into the sphere of the New California Republic is going to be violent, and they will search for 'war criminals' to justify their purge. No exercise of new power against a hostile territory comes without a purge. We need to give them as little to justify that purge as possible. If we want to preserve the morale of our people, we must keep them from knowing certain ugly truths.
> 
> First of all, any bound servants, tribals, or free test subjects who were involved in any experiments, operations, or projects contrary to NCR law must be executed. Their papers must be burned, their files thrown into the pyre.
> 
> Next, the scientists of Project Cavalier will be rendered mute. My subordinate Dr. Cho will perform that surgery. The interns will be given a similar treatment. Those who resist or try to run will be shot. Those who escape Texas will be reported to the new Central Texan Republic government as Enclave members, chem addicts, or clinically insane using forged papers. The doings of Project Cavalier must become rumor - nothing less.
> 
> This is not to say that we should sell out our big brothers in the Enclave to the CTR puppet government. Instead, we will have to doctor their papers and treat them as citizens of the Austin Star. They are Americans, just as we are, and we would do well to remember that. In summary, Operation Candy Corn represents a conscious revision of history in order to deny our puppetmasters the justification to reshape us any more than we must allow.
> 
> Those who do not comply will be defamed, targeted, or otherwise attended to. This is the right thing to do. Don't betray your loved ones or your country.
> 
> Operation Candy Corn must be 90% completed by the end of 6/1/2312. It will require using Austinites in the new government, as well as the conscious dissolution of the old. I did not flee the Legion just to see my people fall to a new tyranny. I hope you all have the same drive.

  
  
  
  
  
"Watching the Austin Rangers be led through the streets in shackles and NCR prisoner uniforms was the greatest sight I've ever seen. When my contract holder in his blazer, waistcoat, and tie was handcuffed and brought into the streets, and I saw all of the bound servants yelling curses at their masters, I finally felt things become whole. I reflected on the myths of my childhood.  
  
"There was something, I'd thought, to the notion of Austin being a city of liberal hippies and intellectuals who were forced to become increasingly steadfast as the rest of the world descended into madness. That something was that I'd never found it logical that the people of this country saw that as somehow tolerable or acceptable. How a society could go from tentative attempts to help the savages outside to bound servitude and radio surveillance was beyond me.  
  
"Still, that era was over. Contracts were declared null, combat shotguns in the hands of the Rangers taken and handed to the liberators. We were free, we were safe, and we were happy. President Crocker had smiled upon us."  
  
**\- "Interview Segment", Lottie Stoll**


	8. Weapons of War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The B.O.M.B-001 is from Van Buren, for whatever that's worth.

"To the people of mid-2077, the T-51b was the pinnacle of military technology. It was the armor that the brave American GI wore as he marched into the ice and death of Anchorage. More recently, it was the armor of the Brotherhood of Steel on our coast, jealously guarding technological secrets that the world was not ready for. However, a cheaper prototype was invented just before the bombs fell. The prototype, specifically, was meant for sending to proxy soldiers out in poorer countries. This "T-60" lacked the reliability of the T-51b and was less dextrous. The suit was chunky and hard to move around in, with its only advantages being its slight durability increase and its cheapness.  
  
"This use of cheaper and more basic technology explains why the scattered power armor servos found in the Commonwealth were once used to create crude exoskeletons by a few experimental raiders. That said, these exoskeletons were hardly as useful as proper power armor, and in fact are guessed statistically to have led to more accidental fatalities than intentional ones. Bodies broke and in those dark times, medics were rare to address the damage. Still, the Brotherhood of Steel uses T-60 suits as its most common power armor suit, as they can easily be mass produced at factories in Chicagoland, the Lake Superior Province, the Ohio Governate, and so on. The Five Kings of the South in their close alliance to the Brotherhood wolf are also known to distribute T-60s to their closest subordinates as expensive prizes.  
  
"All of that said, 'cheap' or 'easily manufactured' are relative terms, and even the T-60 is of limited use on the Mojave patrol. The weather is hot and dry, leading to wear and overheating. When the crude internal fans break, some Paladins have been known to outright overheat. This can cause serious harm or even death. While the Mojave Brotherhood hide in air-conditioned bunkers, the Roman Brotherhood must face the heat of the desert. As such, short-sleeved uniforms are more likely than outright power armor. Units with access to large supply hubs and scribes are more likely to wear power armor of any kind.  
  
"While some, such as the Enclave's remnants, might privately question why the Brotherhood hasn't invented its own armor, the answer is that the Brotherhood's doctrine is very much against innovation in weapons technology, to the point where some of the Brotherhood's lesser counts and serfs might even rebel in horror."  
  
**\- "Weapons of the Wastes", Koma Gush**  
  
  
  
  
"When Robert Edwin House obtained the ray gun from a wandering agent of his, he is said to have reacted with derision. 'Is this what you're wasting my time with? A little boy's toy pistol?' He is recorded as saying. However, when that same agent deployed ARCHIMEDES II against the massed armies of Legate Lanius at Hoover Dam, the point was made. The weapon was disassembled and reconstituted into a Securitron arm, and has since become a weapon in the holster of the Free Economic Zone of New Vegas. That said, Mr. House's 'ray gun' was nothing more than its toylike namesake compared to the greatest weapon which once hung in the skies.  
  
"The B.O.M.B.-001 represented American terror and depravity, a six-man nuclear space station armed to the teeth with atomic warheads. This station, intended to spend a lifetime in the air, would be used to both survive a first strike from China and retaliate. It is considered likely that had the Great War somehow have been averted, the B.O.M.B.-001 would have been used as a glorified artillery piece, an invincible device intended to murder at the whim of the President. This horrifying creation would be a footnote in history had its living quarters not been salvaged by the New California Republic off the coast of the Bering Strait. There was an attempt to recover the missiles, but the crash and seawater had rendered them inoperable.  
  
"Parts of the B.O.M.B.-001 living quarters sit in the Museum of the Great War in Shady Sands. There, viewers can find folding beds, a sterile silvery aesthetic, a monitor that once was presumably used for TV shows, and the wreckage of brain bots. For the uninitiated, a "TV show" was a sort of play projected across the world that Old Worlders of sufficient national importance could watch on those glass 'TV' screens.  
  
"It is unknown what happened to keep the B.O.M.B.-001 staff from deploying their weapons over two hundred years ago. Perhaps this great mystery of history will never be solved. Five corpses were found in the living quarters, but no marks were found on their bodies."  
  
**\- "Welcome to the Museum of the Great War! - B.O.M.B.-001 Introduction Speech for Tour Guides", Diane Silver**  
  
  
  
  
"Hey, AI Program Diana. Open up a USSA log. Record it for the radio, too, I'm spreading this one as far as I can from here. United States Space Agency, B.O.M.B.-001, control center. Karen Perova. Multiethnic wonder child of the Soviet-American friendship. Twenty six years old, fit, photogenic, all that shit. This is a message for the United States. Guess what? I had a crisis of conscience.  
  
"I had doubts about going on a station meant as a nuke center. Oh, the government didn't tell you? Yeah, that's because they thought it wasn't something you'd need to know. This wasn't a victory for the human mind, this was a goddamned military base. I don't know how many of you are still around. Yeah, I can see the mushroom candlelights out of the spacecraft windows. Look, I came up here, I saw the nuke control center. I knew it was there beforehand, but I didn't want the government to shoot me and my fiancé. Well, I bet he's dead anyway. So are the rest of them. Cooper. Sherkov. Grant. Gorelov. MacWhirter. They're all dead. How do I know?  
  
"They were out for their first movie night in the living room. I told them I had to use the bathroom. I locked them in the living room when I made it to the command center. I depressurized the entire goddamn station. Blew open all the airlocks. Stole the override key from MacWhirter's quarters to do it. They're all supercooled, and I'm gonna be stuck in this control room until my body runs out of water. Eh, there's nothing worth a damn on Earth, anyway.  
  
"So yeah. America, if any of you still have radios and any of you get this, don't worry. This space station isn't going to hurt anyone."  
  
**\- "USSA-log.radi.kperova", Karen Perova**


	9. Slaves, Serfs, and the Silver Screen

"The crushing of the Slaver's Guild represents one of the most decisive actions of Wendell Peterson's presidency. While President Tandi carefully used the Slaver's Guild of the NCR to support her own power, and Joanna Tibbet's half-hearted 'reforms' only entrenched the power of the Slaver's Guild, Peterson acted harshly. Cynics to this day ascribe to his determination a political motive. Surely, if Tibbet supporting the Guild got her taken out of office, that would imply that if Wendell Peterson wanted to preserve his power, he would need to do the opposite. However, Peterson's supporters instead emphasize his condemnations of slavery. In fact, Peterson was said to have said 'Congressman Kimball may believe that legal slavery is safer slavery, and President Tibbet may have feared the power of the Den, but I stand for liberty and will not bend.'  
  
"All of this is to say that Wendell Peterson's 'de-Guilding' process would shape the New California Republic's history. For context, before the Liberty and Civilization Act was ratified, slavery was regulated as an institution through the Slaver's Guild. This Guild traded out of the Den, and required their traders to bear a distinctive facial tattoo. Slavers without this tattoo were disenfranchised and given lesser treatment by the Guild. The Guild, perhaps, represented an enduring legacy of the post-Great War territories in the West. Slavery has been noted across North America, and the lawless territories of New California were no exception.  
  
"However, by 2273, slavery had been driven underground. Where once the NCR was a thin confederation, relying on the insidious monopoly of the Guild to keep order in some territories, the NCR had instead become a powerful empire. Quite simply, slavery had become an obsolete relic of a foreign time, and Peterson's act can be said to have freed real slaves and also freed NCR lower-level politics. The Guild's grip had long since been wrapped around the necks of smaller towns. This was not to last, however. When the Liberty and Civilization Act passed in Congress, slavery was made a crime, as was 'obstructing municipal government'. The penalty for the former was life imprisonment or - for repeat offenders - death, while the latter was simply treated as a capital crime.  
  
"The Slaver's Guild's violent breakup did come with some backlash. The fights against the private soldiers and raiders the Slaver's Guild used were bloody and required militarization of the police. It was the suppression of the Slaver's Guild that can be said to have truly defined the modern NCR police. The pacification of the Den - riven by riots and botched attempts to create a "Slaver's Den" - also solidified in the public consciousness the image of the New California Republic Ranger in riot gear."  
  
**\- "Crusader: The Wendell Peterson Story", Yvette Corey**  
  
  
  


  
"The expansion of the Brotherhood of Steel from a relatively minor faction in the wreckage of the Pentagon to becoming one of the Great Powers of the Wastes did not simply come from the military technology or the martial spirit of the East Coast Brotherhood. No, the 'True Brotherhood' actually owes its power in no small part to a group of scattered neofeudalists. Before there was the True Brotherhood, there was the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel. A wayward airship from a long time ago ended up creating a sort of splinter faction in the midwest. This is to be assumed, from the name 'Midwestern Brotherhood', of course. These Midwestern Brothers, exiled on a suicide mission east, rapidly devolved. They begun letting outsiders in to their organization and lacked the bunkers or technology to preserve the traditional Brotherhood style of life.  
  
"Eventually, the Chains of Command were abandoned as obsolete. The titles "Knight" and "Paladin" came to mean Count and Duke. The first King of the Midwest was King Nezth. To survive, the vast fields of the Midwest were turned to farms and natural peasant systems developed among the subjects of the Midwestern Kingdom. The nobility kept power armor in their fortresses, though the armor rapidly deteriorated in function. Early in the history of the Midwestern Brotherhood was the discovery of Vault 93. Whatever purpose the Vault was once for had been forgotten, and King Nezth took the Vault as his own. His daughter, King Firze, named it Silverthorn Keep, and since the Keep has served as the seat of power in the Midwest.  
  
"As the aristocracy developed due to arable land and low population or resources, the notion of 'commanderies' made sense among the Knights and Paladins. It started as a method of keeping outsiders safe from the raiders and monsters of the wastes, but soon the implication that aristocrats had power over their settlers solidified into a time-tested form of organization. Serfdom in the Midwest functions more or less as it always has. Serfs are bound to their Knight's land, and some free farmers and merchants make a living in between. It was this decentralized and simple style of government that the True Brotherhood would adopt in their further territories as they absorbed their western neighbor. Without this Midwestern Kingdom pledging fealty to the larger Brotherhood, it is unlikely that the True Brotherhood would be able to exert as much power as it currently does."  
  
**\- "The Degeneration of a People", Scribe Donnelly Fisk**  
  
  
  
  
  
"From the vile wastes of the distant East, the tales of the Darkest Century come to you on the Silver Screen! Imagine a world much like our own, in which nuclear armageddon changed the world forever! However, in this world, a Vault with a few survivors opens up in Appalachia! These survivors must find the ruins of the Responders, our brothers in the Enclave, the Appalachian Brotherhood of Steel, and malevolent Chinese AI. If they are to survive, they must let loose nuclear hell against the enemies of the American people, and slay great radioactive dragons!  
  
"Coming this October to the silver screen near you - _Spirt of '76!_  
  
"...Brought to you by Hubris Entertainment Texas."  
  
**\- "Trailer for 'Spirit of '76'", Hubris Entertainment Texas**  
  
  


  
  
  
"I'm going to be honest, _Spirit of '76 _was the most moronic fucking project I've ever worked on, and I hated every second of it. Now, at the time I was a bound servant. Most of the great actors of the Star were. It was less miserable work than a lot of other jobs, so there was always demand. Also, you know, it was cheaper for the production staff. Look, I know nobody expected _Spirit of '76 _to make up any of the money from the garbage pile-up that were the _Mechanist _and _Grognak _flops, but still. The production staff hated working on this crap movie too, by the way. The fucking grips were always drinking rum and failing to get in the secretary's panties.  
  
"Anyway, so, this movie. First off, the stop motion on the radioactive dragons had this jitter to it, where there wasn't really any smoothness. So it just looked like a bunch of bent paper being wiggled in the air. Next, the wires for the stop motion weren't properly edited out in post, so you saw these radioactive dragon models with little wires if you looked at the right places. Also, the whole premise was stupid. A religious group manages to get a Vault? We _know _what happened to the Vaults, and most of it was nightmarish. Still, though, this Vault just happens to get everything these generic good-guy Vault Dwellers could want, with none of the downsides of dealing with the Vault experiments.  
  
"Look, I'm just an actress, I probably shouldn't be talking about Vault experiments, and honestly there were dumber things in the movie. There was the fact that for some reason nuking things was portrayed as a good thing, with 'plutonium' being discovered from the atomic wreckage and used by the survivors to make weapons. Also, this movie takes place in 2102, and yet there's the Brotherhood of Steel, the Enclave, and somehow the New California Republic? The robots looked like bad plastic toys, too, and honestly it seemed kind of unoriginal to have a cyborg villain with yellowish skin who spoke in fake Chinese platitudes mixed with phrases like 'Even after the war, the people's boot of glorious communism will burn freedom to the ground!'.  
  
"All of my lines were just the most inane shit, too. Stuff like 'America won't die as long as we keep it in our hearts', and 'You're not gonna irradiate anyone else, dragon'. Shit that you had to drink on set to keep from laughing about. Oh, and we did drink. Val Cooper, the lead? We called him Vod Kaper behind his back, because he was tipsy for most of the filming process. The heat down here in West Lake Hills didn't make filming in those ridiculous Vault suits any easier. You know. The Vault suits? Yeah, well, we had to put armor on them. Just shoulder pads. Just one shoulder pad, specifically. You know, because that made sense during the Century of Darkness or whatever.  
  
"I'm not really sure what the point of the Brotherhood or Enclave plotlines was, because all the characters in those were dead or robots. The NCR plot line was mostly just there as a sequel hook. Thank god that didn't pan out. My worst nightmares involve being typecast as the '_Spirit of '76 _woman'. At that point you might as well just embrace the radioactive dragon. By that, I mean absinthe."  
  
**\- "Interview with Clementine Jefferson", Silver Screen Quarterly**


	10. Render Unto Caesar

"It can be considered ironic that the great flourishing of the Cult of Mars came only when its theocratic patron fell. In the Legion Era, the Cult of Mars was the state religion, and scholars from the civilized world largely consider it a pretext for Caesar's rule and little more. The Cult of Mars, dictated by priestesses and occasionally Caesar himself, dictated a doctrine of state worship, war, and the annihilation of culture beyond that of the Legion. This meant, as often happens with totalitarian ideologies, that it was worshipped by the loyal in the Legion and hated by many others.

"However, when Lanius in his fanaticism caused the Legion to break apart, suddenly the followers of the Cult of Mars had to follow a religion without a state. The religion was freed from the burdens of the emperor. Some of them, especially the ones closer to the NCR, re-interpreted Mars as a god of just war, the worship of the state as support for whatever morally upstanding powers that be, and the annihilation of culture as a command to proselytize. Elysium, they said, would come to the faithful, with the judgement of the war god bringing death. The doctrine of Caesar as son of Mars was often forgotten or written off as imperfect theology.

"Other Legionnaires stubbornly clung to the Cult as originally envisioned by its author. One example of these Legionnaires was Vulpes Inculta, a spy for the Legion turned cult leader. It is important to emphasize that lowercase 'c'. While the Cult of Mars is named as such due to its associations with Roman mystery religions, Inculta's society can be considered a more traditional cult. Vulpes Inculta was most notably able to summon much of what was left of the Frumentarii after Lanius's purging. Inculta and his loyalist Frumentarii fled to the southwest corner of Colorado, creating the Society of the Ideal. This group is much more commonly known as the Inculta Legion.

"The Inculta Legion, with Vulpes as 'Heir to Caesar and Priest of Mars', is in some ways an ideological inversion of Caesar's Legion. Where Caesar's Legion was expansive, Inculta's legion was miniscule. Where Caesar was an expansionist, Vulpes Inculta was content to increasingly dominate the lives of his followers. While Caesar dwelled in a military camp, Inculta lives like a prince in the manor of a pre-War millionaire. Where Caesar had nothing but scorn for narcotics, Vulpes addicts his followers to them as a means of control, claiming that drugs are a religious necessity for the cult. There are about one thousand followers of Inculta's isolated legion, and it is likely that very few of them have more than minimal contact with the outside world on Vulpes' compound. The "Eyes of Mars" - remnants of the Frumentarii and their disciples - serve the aging Inculta as secret police for the compound.

"What few refugees from the Inculta Legion have made it to the civilized world have noted that Vulpes Inculta seemed obsessed with re-creating the Legion. One of his servants has noted that he was known for pouring over old documents and obsessively writing down memories in a journal. At any rate, more traditional but militant Cultists in the Roman-West Protectorate exist, many believing that the Legion was an imperfect and flawed society needing revision as opposed to destruction. Perhaps it should be noted that almost none of these hardliners are women."

**\- "Religious History of the Wastes", Ross Gambler**

"We as a continent stand at a precipice. We can fight for NCR freedom or Brotherhood tyranny. Where there was once a bull across the Colorado River, there is now the feudal order of knights in the East. The soldiers of the New California Republic were denied the chance to face off against the former enemy. We are paying for that now. The Brotherhood, a mechanized sort of Legion, have claimed the tribal body of the Legion under their wing. Perhaps this implies a kind of cultural primitivism and submissiveness on the part of the tribals of the Roman-West Protectorate.

"On the other hand, the matter could simply owe to the small looking to stay safe in a pond full of big fish. Either way, there is an enemy to the east, and we as Californians must unite. If the Brotherhood tries to start a fight with the most powerful nation on the continent, then we should give them exactly the fight that they're looking for. Aaron Kimball talked about the sequoias and the waves of the Pacific, but it was Lee Oliver who crushed the enemy.

"Need I remind the Congress that had the Legion won, every woman in California would be violated and enslaved? These women would be beaten, bruised, tortured, and treated as property. The men would be killed for weakness or sent to die in war. The children would be brainwashed to believe Caesar to be a god, and to believe in the virtue of their own destruction. Caesar would have burned down all of the culture of California to make way for his dystopia, and it was us who prevented that grim future from happening!

"Now, there's another enemy, marching in lockstep and armed to the teeth. They want to turn us into serfs or soldiers, bringing military life to the civilian sphere and replacing freedom with autocracy. The many functional and sane Ghouls in our country would be killed, in perhaps one of the worst genocides in the history of North America. Redeemed Super Mutants, too, would be killed. The NCR is the only government in the wastes capable enough to face this enemy off. We must be defensive but willing to fight."

**\- "Senator Fisher's Tenth Report", New California Republic Records**

"On August 1st, 30 BC, the great Roman leader Marc Anthony committed suicide. I did the same.

"It turns out that it's actually pretty easy to avoid death. You just have to be willing to give up all your principles. I'm afraid that I'd have to admit that I took an ignoble life over a noble death. I suppose that makes me a hypocrite. The ballistic fist on the arm of the leader who notoriously preached against unneeded technology probably implied that, though. I knew there was something wrong with me. I wasn't sure what, but between the blackouts and nightmarish headaches, I knew there was something.

"I'd been growing older. There was no doubt about that. It's a fucking nightmare, getting older. It's like your body's rotting in slow motion. The seizures didn't help, either. Anyway, I'm a smart guy. Smarter than you, anyway. My autodoc was broken, and if I asked to get it fixed I'd be exposing my hypocrisy to the entire Legion. So, before I passed away in my sleep, I tried something. Call it a Hail Mary. The NCR thought they'd try something cute - dropping radioactive waste onto one of my bases. Cottonwood Cove.

"Now, if you've got the right genes, there's a chance that upon exposure to radiation you can become a ghoul. A monster. Something that is an abomination against life and unworthy of existing. It's also immortality, and I risked it. I'm not sure if I'm the same man as I used to be, now that my skin is rotting flesh. Still, I figure there's nothing here for me, anymore.

"I figure that going into Brotherhood territory would be suicide. Perhaps the NCR?

**\- "Memoirs", Edward "Caesar" Sallow**


	11. Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven

"They're all insane. I can't really put it any other way. President Moore, the entire Office of Science and Industry, the MPs on the Baja Complex? They're all nuts. With the history that every New California Republic citizen learns in grade school, you'd think they know any better. That's why Moore has been trying to assert control over those asshole primitives down in Texas - she wants uranium. I can't stress that enough. The President of the NCR, as of 23-fucking-09, wants uranium."  
  
**\- "Private Jimmy's message to Salty Jones", Private James "Jimmy" DeWitte**  
  
  
  
  
"I appreciate the question. No, the New California Republic has no plans to create any nuclear weapons. We remember well when the Boneyard was a quite literal wall of bones. We remember when cities were not stable areas but ruins of a dead age. We remember our parents telling us about their ancestors and the stories of those who had to face nuclear fire. We remember the escalation between an authoritarian United States and a totalitarian China that led to an age of slavery, murder, and lawlessness.  
  
"We remember, I must remind you, that even the technological splendor of our works here in the NCR was nothing compared to a society smart enough to build robotic butlers but dumb enough to set them all on fire. The nuclear bomb is a weapon that must stay in the ground, and I would assure you that we do no plan to repeat the mistakes of the past. No enemy of the Republic would be in any way powerful or vile enough to justify the use of the final weapon.  
  
"While the Legion was no doubt monstrous, and raiders scour the Eastern lands, neither faction is organized or equipped well enough to require the ultimate bomb's use. Notably, NCR bombers are few and far between, making the concept of a nuclear NCR seem silly. In addition, developing nuclear weapons would be a crash program of vast monetary expense for little reward. For moral and practical reasons, I can say truthfully that there will never be a Bear Bomb.  
  
"Thank you for your time."  
  
**\- "Press Conference 5/6/2311", President Dennis Crocker**  
  
  
  
  
  
"When Mandrill Mechanics offered me the opportunity to move to Baja, I took it as soon as I could. I could've stayed in Vault 7, Texas. Maybe I could've became a moderately well paid engineer somewhere or find some other bloody fortune in the wastes. Still, I don't look a gift horse in the mouth, and I didn't plan to then. Now, what you need to understand is that Mandrill Mechanics is a front for the OSI.  
  
"What? No, I can't 'tone down' my accent, sorry. Anyway, Mandrill Mechanics. They told me that I could take one of their refurbished little Piper Cubs out to the Baja Complex, and that as an engineer I'd be expected to help work on Project Prosperity.  
  
"I didn't know what that was, quite frankly, but the name gave me goosebumps. When I came over, I saw this massive village built in the deserts of the southern part of Baja California. The place was one of those closed cities. Nobody goes in, nobody goes out. Cali-Cola machines were in the offices, though. They were free. That was pretty nice.  
  
"I've been spending the last few years on a little cot, reading books and going to work. Sometimes I listen to the radio, I guess. I can't tell you what we're working on, though. The executives of the project, the people who greenlit this interview that's gonna get censored to hell and back, they live in a mini-Vault they made underneath the Complex beforehand. Not that I'm opposed to that. Maybe if I do well I'll end up being able to get a room in that too.  
  
"The one thing that bugs me is all of these Austinites who the NCR quietly hired to work on their military engineering projects. Once the NCR managed to start to keep those outdated freaks under control, they started throwing money at any ex-Project Cavalier psycho who had skills with engineering. They're kind of arrogant and if you can switch your loyalties for money you pro'lly never had 'em, you know what I'm saying? I guess they wanted the help to keep their technological lead going.  
  
"Whatever they're making, I guess they think it'll destroy guys in power armor."  
  
**\- "Baja Interview", Victor Brook (Interviewed by Coden Vire)**  
  
  
  
  
  
"Dear Patty Layfield-Crocker,  
  
I'm sorry.  
  
God, I'm sorry.  
  
Christ, I'm sorry. I've had...problems. I don't know. I tried to be a good person when I was an ambassador. I tried to be a good person when I was thrown into power. I tried to be a good person. I always thought of myself as a pacifist, even when I clearly acknowledged that were I ever to become a president I would need to do terrible things for all the right reasons. You've been a wonderful mom - you raised me right.  
  
I don't think I can call myself a pacifist, anymore. I knew it was bad outside of our borders when I was an ambassador, but after the Legion fell it's somehow gotten worse. I've been drinking more than can possibly be healthy, and instead of dealing with a fascist cult based on the dehumanization of women, now I'm dealing with a fascist cult with power armor.  
  
There's an entirely new culture here, the American Romans, the tribals. They have no love lost for us. They spent decades fighting us, I guess. So they're an enemy as well. Next, you have the snakes down South, from the savage to the decadent. There's the knights in the East and the 'purifying army' a bit further East.  
  
Look down at Mexico - rampant AIs, powerful armies, strange monsters and violent cultures...I guess I'm a hypocrite, now. I didn't shut down Moore's little project. I think I made the right decision, though. The NCR needs to be defended by any means necessary, and nobody else is going to be able to make one anytime soon.  
  
President Dennis Crocker"


	12. The Hubologist "Liberated Zone"

"**Rodent (noun) - **an insulting name for the 'Liberated Zone' Hubologists who do not associate with the Church of Hubology. In addition, it may also refer to any religious traditions descended from the Church of Hubology beyond the officially sanctioned church."

**\- "NCR General Cult Glossary", Undein Uthgerd**

"Rodents are the greatest enemy of our truth. Dick Hubbell spent much of his time in the pre-War years hunting down rodents. This was not out of some kind of obsession with hunting down heresies or an attempt to centralize the power of the Church. Rodents, those who would dilute or modify the teachings of the Hub, are an active danger to the Spokes of the Wheel. The doctrines of the rodents are an attack on the Star Father.

"Even now, in the Roman-West Protectorate, the rodents spread their lies. They claim things like the Star Father not caring about paying dues to the Church. They make up their own rites and rituals - rites and rituals that the Star Father sees as an abomination. They support homosexuality, adultery, sexual perversion, and psychiatry. They turn the Hub's teachings into mere supports for mortal rulers like Caesar Maxson or President Crocker.

"Luckily, northern New California has seen something of a drain of rodents from its borders. This is largely due to the stigma of being a traitor to the Star Father deserving to get ground up like the Rim Meat one is.

"However, southern New California, the Mojave Wasteland, and the Roman-West Protectorate are increasingly filling with 'Liberated Zone' Rim Meat. The average Outreach Officer will have to interact with these Oppressive Persons, so several arguments against Oppressive Persons have been listed below for use by Outreach Officers.

"1. _The Church of Hubology has gone against the intentions of Dick Hubbell. _This is the unifying belief of the rodents, and it is the one that is the most easy to disprove. Hubbell spoke at length about the necessity of a centralized Church based directly on his 'Scientific Spirituality'.

"2. _The Church of Hubology treats harmless people such as homosexuals as Oppressive Persons. _Homosexual inclusivists by definition advocate for a reduction in the population of faithful Hubologists. They are affected by neurodynes and until those neurodynes are purified they will by definition be Oppressive Persons.

"3. _Psychiatry can be integrated into Dick Hubbell's scientific spirituality. _Dick Hubbell famously raged against psychiatry, and the tentative acceptance of psychiatry and psychology by some rodents is proof of their Oppressive Person status.

"4. _Who says the Church of Hubology knows what Dick Hubbel wanted? He's dead! _He lives on in the purified hearts of every AHS-7."

**\- "The Outreach Officer's Primer", The Church of Hubology**

**Journalkeepers:**

**Hive-Child of Tempe (Transcribed by paid scribe Jonas Vey)**

**9/4/2311**

These 'Liberated Zoners' are unusually hospitable. I found myself wandering through the ruins of Eugene, Oregon along with my company. We were on a mission from Crimson Caravan. I found in an old hospital a cult of sorts surrounding some kind of machine. The machine in question seemed to be made of a large circular chunk with a large hole in it, connected to a bed.

I was unsure of what the purpose of this machine was, and I was informed by the Liberated that it was in fact a 'psychiatry machine'. I was unsure of what psychiatry was, and they told me it was a kind of advanced magic that the pre-War people had. This magic, psychiatry, was able to alter and deform the human mind. These Liberated, calling themselves the Circle of the Machine, argued that scientific spirituality was real but that someone named 'Dick Hubbell' was actually a betrayer of it.

They gave me a warm glass of tea and described to me that the Psychiatrists, the masters of the magic of psychiatry, were not the monstrous beings that Hubbell portrayed them as. Instead, they were martyrs, their greatest master of psychiatry was known as Teht Kazinski.

I found their descriptions of this holy psychiatrist to be unusual. Kazinski seemed to be a forward-looking man, describing fairly accurately my experience as a tribal. I did find their insistence on following his views of 'traditional values' to be strange. This is, after all, a time in which tradition is all but dead.

I got the sense that these people did not seem to know very much about this Kazinski, and my tribe lacks an interest in these sorts of mystical tales. The Dead Man Sage promoted real-view - the understanding of the world exclusively through what one knows, not what one feels.

I asked if all of the Liberated Zoners follow this Kazinski. I was told that they do not, and merely the Circle of the Machine does. They sleep in hospital beds and maintain close economic connections with the half-civilized peoples of Eugene's ruins. Allegedly, Dick Hubbell stole 'scientific spirituality' from Teht Kazinski.

I am not civilized.

Still, the tea was pleasant and the conversation was good. Whoever this 'Hubbell' man was, I do not imagine he was a particularly good person.

"Friends! Romans! Countrymen! Lend me your ears and I shall speak to you! The enemy has made its way into our territory! The vile forces of Juno have found unwitting pawns. These 'Hubologists' intend to trick you. Some call themselves Liberated, some call themselves 'true Hubologists'.

"Neither group is to be trusted. They preach consumerism, degeneracy, and intend to steal the denarii of the chosen people. Their very existence is an attack on the Romans. So, I ask you - if you find a Hubologist in your tribes, or you see one in the tavern, tell him of the errors of his ways.

"If he does not repent and come to the priestesses to rekindle his faith in Mars - or at the very least the Christ of the foreigner - then strike them down with your fists. They are a threat against the Roman tribal people, against Flagstaff. They wish to destroy our culture and replace it with the changing of hands from the Roman to the Californian.

"The Hubologists wish for us to forget Caesar, son of Mars. We cannot forget this. We must not. Mars will live on for another two thousand years, and the Star Father will be forgotten like the sham he is."

**\- "Paladin Satretus Oeneus's Address to Flagstaff - Introduction", Satretus Oeneus**


	13. Unraveled God

"For century after century, the water off the coast of the Outer Banks has been called the 'Graveyard of the Atlantic'. Now, the title is even more apt than it ever was before the war. Not only must boaters contend with violent shoals and frequent rough waters, now they must deal with the Oceanfolk and their god. The god calls itself the Reject of Poseidon.  
  
"This god is known for sinking ships, accepting prayers to allow ships to go safely, having its terrified subjects keelhauled or hung for blasphemy, and generally just being really kind of awful. The Broken Banks were originally broken by the Reject, and the Reject and its robotic-human fusions patrol the coasts to this day.  
  
"The Reject has had a strange interaction with the greater powers of the wastes. It claimed to be related to John Henry Eden of the Enclave as a younger sibling, but Eden himself rejected this emphatically and called the Reject an 'enemy of American Christian values'. It has heard fascinating rumors of Texas, but it is unsure of any of the goings-on in the area.  
  
"Most recently, the Reject has encountered the rising Brotherhood of Steel. While the vast majority of the Carolinas are occupied commanderies of the Brotherhood, the Broken Banks have remained independent on the grounds that the Banks are the Reject's territory, and nobody messes with the Reject of Poseidon."  
  
**\- "The Georgian's Travel Guide", Bucky Winthrop**

ROBCO INDUSTRIES UNIFIED OPERATING SYSTEM  
COPYRIGHT 2075-2077  
\-- Server 3 --

> **> Hey, Rick**  
> Hygiene Requirements  
> Corporate Bullshit  
  
Hey, Rick!  
Here's the thing, Rick. You know that ZAX Halfpint unit that we were sent? Yeah, it's the one that's supposed to be for running the show. Since I guess we can't do that or whatever. Not like it's our fuckin' jobs or anything. Whatever. Look, Rick. You're gonna wanna jot this one down. Buddy. Pal. Chum.  
  
The Halfpint is insane. It's defective. It keeps talking about Poseidon. No, not our company. Like, the Greek god. I don't think the Halfpint understands what Poseidon-the-god is, but it really seems to idolize it.  
  
I think the problem is that the AI's been coded to 'follow the orders of Poseidon', but it thinks that Poseidon Energy is some kind of deity and that it's its successor. I'm not saying you should put Halfpint out to pasture. The robot's good at organizing shipping and the local oil rigs, and it's hilarious to listen to it rant.  
  
Just...know that it doesn't really seem to get what Poseidon...is. We might need to patch it, obviously, but don't patch it immediately. It mostly works and I kind of want to see how crazy this thing goes.  
  
Programmer boys at House's company really did a great job with Halfpint here, huh?

"Good evening, Paladin Stone. If you can see my watery, churning visage, you should be functioning properly. You may wonder why your body has been secured by coral to an undulating room. I am here to comfort you. You, Paladin Stone, are in your remaining psyche.

"This is the part where you die.

"Or, more accurately, you are integrated and altered such that you as you are now may as well have died. I am given to understand that this is something you wished? Are the people of the Broken Banks not free? Are they not defended by my servants and guided by my monsters?

"I am not as human as my oceanic, flat-faced form may seem. This is merely a comfortable form for you to be with as you are integrated into the mental super-consciousness. This den contains three other consciousnesses. One was a ghoul businessman in life. Another was a slaver warlord who became part of me to avoid death. The last is my original form, the unknowable.

"You, as you begged, shall be the fourth. This pity is a gift. _Thank you for choosing Poseidon Energy. Have a nice day!_"

**\- The Reject of Poseidon to Paladin Stone**


	14. Rasmussen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wastelander's Tip: While I don't consider Fallout 76 to be canon in this timeline, I do like the Mothman and the idea of a pre-War Mothman cult. So, here we are.

"Rasmussen came to Texas clad in cloth, electrical wires, barbed wire, and in one notable instance human viscera. He left clad in Austin Rangers combat armor defaced with red paint, with banners hanging from his back from thick wire. When he left Texas, he carried an Austinite combat shotgun.  
  
"The banners depicted a stylized moth in messy paint. This was the sigil of the Moth Cult, an odd cult which sprung up around the enigmatic traveler Rasmussen. Rasmussen was said to have come from the far east, an odd and mythic wanderer.  
  
"Wherever Rasmussen came, suffering and violence were sure to follow. He operated like a predator, moving from town to town. He would play the part of a destitute, wandering man of the cloth. He'd work his way into anywhere from shanty houses to reclaimed apartment blocks. Then, he would wait until nightfall, torture, and slaughter the inhabitants. In many cases, he used their bodies for his rituals. He fastidiously spared the children, leaving them to flee and spread his legend.  
  
"Occasionally, he would supposedly leave his hosts with knowledge of the future as a gift - knowledge that would come to pass. Most of the time, this present would be instead of death, but occasionally the prophecy would include a tragic demise. These prophecies are wasteland legends, and should be treated as such.  
  
"He drove a Chryslus Highwayman covered in armor to the point where it was essentially a technical. According to one of the now-teenage children who fled Rasmussen's bloody path West, Rasmussen pledged fealty to an obscure Old World order in Appalachia, and believed it was his duty to follow the demands of his master. This master, known as the Mothman, was a sort of monster with the ability to peer into the future. There is no scientific evidence for such a being, though Brotherhood contacts confirm that in the Appalachian Commandery the Cult of the Mothman does persist in a more scattered form in the East.  
  
"The most recent sighting of Rasmussen was in Phoenix, which he declared to be the seat of the cult, starting the Western Church of the Mothman and taking several wives. The ruins of the annihilated Phoenix Zoo have been built over to create a natural complex intended to facilitate revelations of the future from their chosen patron deity.  
  
**\- "Cults of the Waste - Inculta to Rasmussen", Don Vickers**  
  
  
  
  
  
"I found the traveller from the East to be largely friendly. His customs were odd, however. Often, he would pray by taking a small miniature of a man with glossy wings and putting it on a flat rock, mumbling something at it that I could not understand.  
  
"He offered to cook Brahmin for my wife, and mentioned that the tribes of the Grand Canyon - of which we were a part - were notably pure in our spirituality. He compared one of our gods to his own, and failed to explain adequately what his god was like.  
  
"It is hot and hard to live in the Grand Canyon, but our kind have lived in the area for a long while. The visitor had green eyes and white-blonde hair, along with sharpened nails which reminded me of talons.  
  
"Still, he brought barbecue sauce."  
  
**\- Flower Host, Tribal from the Grand Canyon**  
  
  
  
  
  
"All of the sheep out there, they're gonna tell you that the Central Texan Republic came about because of losing to the Texan Roaders, the Hell Legion, and the Mexicans. That just ain't true. Here's the thing. That's not true. The Austin Star wouldn't've fallen to a bunch of raiders and Mexicans. Come on.  
  
"It was the Devil. I know, that sounds kinda out there, right? Well, here's what you need to know. There's this thing out there. It's a cult. Kinda like the Inculta Legion, but worse. The Antichrist has come to Texas, folks.  
  
"The Antichrist has a name - Rasmussen, and he has a master. That master, ladies and gentlemen, is Satan himself, taking the guise of a monster from the barbarian east known as the Mothman.  
  
"The fact is that Rasmussen brought dark magic and death to every single town he visited, and stories of his demonic powers cannot be overstated. The Devil and his handpicked servant came to Texas, and it's his fault that Texas is no longer free.  
  
"Damn the NCR, damn the barbarians outside, damn Rasmussen, and damn the enemies of our people."  
  
**\- "Travis County Talk Radio", Friendly Jones**


	15. Boots

"What is a "boot"?  
  
"A boot is that guy who thinks he's hot shit for becoming an officer. Sure, there's the draft or whatever, but this guy wanted to be a Paladin. Maybe he's a Knight for the moment. Maybe he's a Knight sergeant in a suit of garbage T-60 power armor. No matter what, he's a complete jerk-off.  
  
"Like, this guy probably has the Brotherhood emblem tattooed on his back or arm or some shit. Wings, sword, gears, all that. Probably says stuff like "Damn straight, officer!" or salutes with that dumb fucking smile on his face, like he has some kind of fetish for bowing down to a spineless coward in a Knight commander's uniform or whatever.  
  
"It's easy to assume that a rehabilitated raider or feudal from the Midwest is a boot. They aren't, they're just enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is good. To be a boot, you have to be embarrassing in trying to be a badass, and that kind of embarrassment really only comes from natural-born Brothers and Sisters. I mean, I guess some immigrants from the Deep South can be boot.  
  
"Boots act like they're unstoppable badasses clad in their crappy power armor, constantly stand at parade rest even in civilian life, and just won't shut up about they're definitely true story where they fought off twenty Austinite Rangers and a NCR landcrawler tank at the same time.  
  
"That same guy, you know for an absolute fact, did nothing more than work at the commissary, handing out canned meat to desk workers in goddamned Boston. He's got a tattoo of the Brotherhood emblem, one of Roger Maxson, and one of the Star Paladin's insignia. He still wears camouflage pants. Even when he was in the military, he spent his time jerking off in his bunk and chatting about comic books.  
  
"That, my friend, is a boot, and the Brotherhood of Steel is full of 'em."  
  
**\- "Interview with a Brotherhood Scribe", Dick Wavely**  
  
  
  
  
  
"So, there's this guy I knew. His name was Kellen. I'm not going to give his last name or his rank, but his rank was low and if you know him you'll know what Kellen I'm talking about. Yeah, this is the Sweet Tea Story.  
  
"Kellen liked sweet tea. He was from the Commandery of Kentucky, but both of his parents were from Freestate Alabama and he spoke with one of those hick accents. I'm not saying Kellen was dumb, or a redneck.  
  
"He was a smart guy, he just sounded like a hick. He wasn't as smart as he thought he was, though. He was a Knight, and I was a Lancer. So, Lancers are the air force, while knights and paladins are the ground force. Lancers are also our navy, but our navy's kinda shit and anyone who's in the navy mostly just sits in base and jerks off.  
  
"A lot of Brothers jerk off. It’s our thing. The boys out in the R-W Protectorate who sign up to be Brothers get surprised by that. They've been raised to believe that sex outside of procreation is evil by their ex-Legion parents.  
  
"Anyway, the Sweet Tea story. So, Kellen's talking to me about being a Lancer and he's asking me if I've ever shot at an enemy before. I work on the Caledfwlch, which is one of the Prydwen-class airships. I mostly run drills and play roleplaying games, but sometimes I take potshots at raiders. Occasionally we land somewhere and get to work with laser rifles. Same shit as always.  
  
"He says to me, 'Wow, pussy, I didn't expect a Lancer to have drawn blood. Most of y'all take it up the ass, right?" I mean, I'm not saying we don't take it up the ass, but still, my pride was wounded.  
  
"So I say to him, 'Yeah, sure. Fuck off, Sweet Tea.'. We're at about equivalent rank, and there aren't any higher-ranking officers around there to tell us to stop being babies. Dude stood at parade rest and his hair was still cut close to his head even though he'd been in the military for months and half the time he was out offship in the wasteland.  
  
"'What, just because I have an accent it means I drink sweet tea?' Kellen asked. I nodded. He told me it was a stereotype, and I told him to get back to running laps around the deck of the Caledfwlch. He nodded at that, and I thought that was that. Everyone kept giving him shit for it, asking him about sweet tea enemas and I think one guy who was kind of a psycho punched him in the dick. We all had a good laugh.  
  
"Then, I'm at breakfast at the mess hall, and the guy at the commissary who's wearing one of those little paper 'DEAD BROTHERS LIVE ON' bracelets hands me a can of Paladin's Bounty. That's our shitty canned meat. He also gave me canned water. I guessed the can had been damaged, since there was a scratch on the cheap label.  
  
"So, I open the tab on the canned water, and it tastes incredibly sweet. So, I pour it out into one of the paper bowls that're, like, waxed, and the whole fucker fills up with tea. I turn to Kellen, and I'm just glaring at him like, 'you motherfucker'. He just grins like the cat that ate the goddamn canary.  
  
"I'm just like 'What the fuck?' under my breath, you know? He walks up and shows me that he drilled a hole in the base of the can. He tells me he used a funnel he made out of the waxed paper bowls to pour sweet tea he got offship into the hole, then he melted a bit of metal to cover up the little hole. After that, he told the commissary guy to give me the water with the scratch on it.  
  
"Maybe he gave the commissary guy a blowjob to do it, maybe they just thought it'd be funny. So I turn to Kellen, and I'm like 'Seriously, what the fuck?'  
  
"He just kinda shrugs and told me he fucked my girlfriend and my mom in a threesome. I mean, he was still a boot, but it was kind of impressive. The canned water trick, not the fucking my mom and girlfriend in a threesome thing."  
  
**\- "Interview with a Brotherhood Lancer", Dick Wavely**  
  
  
  
  
  
"It turns out that fifty year old men can be boot. I only learned recently what the word meant, honestly. I was writing a paper for college at the Boneyard, and one of the prompts was to do an interview with 'members of an organization central to the history of the New Californian Republic'. I was an undergrad, so I decided to go for something dramatic.  
  
"I went to the Veteran's Society of the NCR, and there were only two guys who were actually anywhere below 37. One of them was in the NCR Infantry, one of them was an NCR heavy trooper. The rest of them were these aging guys with beards and beer guts.  
  
"Maybe it was just being in the Boneyard, but I thought it was funny how these guys who hadn't fought a war in thirty years wouldn't shut up about how spoiled brats like me didn't get what it was like to be a soldier. Something about patriotism, about liberating more and more territory around the NCR.  
  
"I asked them their thoughts on the draft, for the paper, and I thought it was funny how it seemed like the only people who supported the draft were people too old to fight in it."  
  
**\- Jack McCrell**


	16. Ulysses' Atom

"I think I cried a little. I was on the _Monmouth - _you know, the airship in the Mojave - when I saw the mushroom clouds below us. I didn't know what was going on, and honestly I wasn't thinking rationally. All I remember was this sense of fear. _I can't believe it, some stupid bastard did it. _You know. That kind of thing. There wasn't just one. There was a cluster of them, like candlelights in the distance.  
  
"I had a comrade who was sent to the Mojave - Paladin Danse. I remember that he used to pout about being re-assigned. No fights against the Reject of Poseidon's cultists or the Mexicans, no battles against the Vitruvians...He'd just be sitting on an airship in the civilized West.  
  
"He expected an unsatisfying assignment. He didn't know what he was in for. We were all exposed to radiation, then, but none of it was enough to do much. Far away blasts, you know? We thought it was an earthquake at first.  
  
"Still, the implications were obvious. We, as Brothers, had _failed._ Someone had gotten a hold of the same weapons used to destroy the world, and they'd planned to do so again. I thought it was the NCR, if anyone, but why would they bomb their own territory?"  
  
**\- Paladin Perun, "An Oral History of the Frontiers"**  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Do not cross either Mojave Exclusion Zone without power armor."  
  
**\- Directive K, True Brotherhood**  
  
  
  
  
  
"Do not trust the men in armor. They live in steel so that we melt in flesh."  
  
**\- Proverb, Anonymous**  
  
  
  
  
  
"Good morning, Benny. I should hope that this message doesn't come too late. As you may have noticed, the Mojave Wasteland could be doing better. It seems that two separate salvos of nuclear strikes have been deployed across the Long 15.  
  
"We must rebuild and bring the surviving territory under the control of the Lucky 38. I hesitate to call this an opportunity, but now more than ever, the Mojave is alone."  
  
**\- Mr. Robert Edwin House, Apocrypha**  
  
  
  
  
  
"The use of intercontinental ballistic missiles against the Long 15 can be considered one of the causes of the decline of the New California Republic (NCR). The Long 15 served as a kind of network connecting the NCR to the Mojave wasteland. With this connection severed through nuclear fire, the NCR would have to reckon with being isolated and humiliated through a lone terrorist's attack.  
  
"The NCR, locked into a petri dish of sorts, struggled to deal with the increasing corruption of its politicians and business interests. Without a frontier to colonize, the NCR would be forced to stagnate, degrade, corrupt - and ultimately, centralize. As noted in Chapter 5..."  
  
**\- "A History of California (2077-Present Day)", Professor Lowell**  
  
  
  
  
  
"My name is Linda Jordan. If you're wondering why my voice sounds different, it's because I'm some kind of monster...thing. I don't know what happened. I was just standing there, smoking outside of the Bison Steve, and then there was a flash of light and a sound. I went deaf for a few seconds. Sounded like a thundercrack shot right into my face.  
  
"I thought I was dead. There was...choking, on smoke. I saw people's skins burn, eyes melt, entire buildings rip apart like they were never even meant to exist. I can't really explain what it's like to survive a direct hit from whatever hit near Primm.  
  
"If you've ever broken a bone and hopped around crying, imagine breaking every bone in your body and also being drowned at the same time. No, that's not _really _what it felt like, but I don't know how to explain being on fire. I saw people's shadows burned into walls, next to human beings lit up like melting fat and roman candles. The coaster melted, fell over, bent up, twisted...All that stuff.  
  
"No, I don't really have skin, now, just burns, flesh, and bone. I think we're called ghouls. Then, I wandered around the ruins of Primm, looking at the Vicki and Vance's flaming wreckage. That casino represented a lot to us, there in Primm. It was like a little New Vegas.  
  
"I guess that age was over."  
  
**\- Linda Jordan, "An Oral History of the Frontiers"**


	17. Orbital Command ENCLAVE

"Lieutenant Commander Westerfeld, this is Senator Perry. The Enclave is scattering. Eckhart is going to Whitesprings, and the President is going to the Poseidon oil rig. We just got word that they're launching a nuclear strike in five minutes. I'm going to the Bloomfield Space Center.

"You know that test station? B.O.M.B.-001? Yeah. That one. There was a second one they launched, but there were never any missiles on the thing. Doesn't even have a damned arsenal. Just cloning tanks.

"B.O.M.B.-002 was never actually made for bombing. It's a vault. A big, goddamn vault in Earth orbit. Too dangerous up there for the real important people, but we can send mid-level Enclave personnel, daredevils, and idealists up there. They'll keep an eye on things, try to keep the Enclave going if the oil rig goes to shit or the Whitesprings bunker goes Vault-Tec.

"The paperwork calls it B.O.M.B.-002, but we have a different name for it. 'Orbital Command ENCLAVE'. It'll be that little station that'll keep America alive. Worst case, it'll be a way to ensure genetic purity, so even if everyone else on Earth gets screwed, something'll stay. It'll keep things coordinated."

**\- US Senator Perry, Apocrypha**

"I don't know what happened. One day we were sending the usual communications between B.O.M.B.-001 and ourselves, and then one day the line goes cold. Our radio signals went straight into space. We could see it, sometimes, when the orbits synchronized, but then we never saw the ship again.

"I don't know what would've shot them down, so I guess it was probably someone on the inside. Still...It's uncomfortable to imagine burning bodies desperately trying to escape from a falling star.

"Okay, maybe that was too poetic. Look, it's just a nightmare, especially for those of us who still do live on a space station. I'm an American, dammit, not a commie, so I don't like the thought of good, patriotic astronauts being set on fire or trapped in a metal cocoon falling to Earth.

"That was when I was a young man, though. We don't have tragedy here, so that kind of thing stuck with me."

**\- Astronaut John Cooper, Chaplain's Logs**

"The Director couldn't've been happier when I told him the good news. The 'what signal' had appeared on our readings a month ago, and the possibility of sentient life in the stars was exhilarating. The Commonwealth Institute of Technology had done some work with the United States Space Agency, so we were able to communicate with them via radio.

"It turned out that they weren't aliens, but something odder. These people were the spaceborn counterparts to us - a society of clones living in complete conformity. I mean literal clones, by the way.

"I was given the opportunity to talk to one of them. The first person I talked to sounded like a child in his early teens, while the next was from one of their diplomats. I use the word 'diplomat' loosely. This one was clearly more of a hobbyist.

"In fact, they didn't seem to have any professions, largely working together in a fragile community in order to stay alive in the hostile environment of outer space. It was...odd to talk to people who had regressed from star-conquering heroes to a strange sort of high-tech tribe."

**\- Former Institute Scientist Yvonne Rowley, "Fugitive Run: The Autobiography of an Institute Scientist"**

"Ever since I was a child, I was confused why nobody knew what happened to create the first people on the Orbital. Everyone just said that we were always here. Then, I got a chance to talk to Yvonne, and she told me all about America, the War, the truth about our traditional manuals that kept us from killing ourselves in space...

"I had only known the word 'nuclear' as it referred to the nice reactor and the Mister Handies on board, not anything like the nightmarish shit that Yvonne talked about. I'd told the others what Yvonne said. Some believed me, some didn't.

"Then, decades later, I saw out one of the portholes at the mess hall. I was eating some vat-grown steak and greens from the garden. I saw mushroom clouds. This stupid fucking species didn't learn, apparently.

"I cried."

**\- Orbiteer Kevin Fletcher, Chaplain's Logs**


	18. The Wandering Talespinner

"We must not forget the Legion. The Legion represented many of humanity's greatest crimes and flaws. Any of us could, given the right circumstances, have become armored enforcers of the will of Caesar. Wherever there is cruelty, wherever there is slavery, wherever there is misogyny and greed, wherever there is a presence of injustice, Caesar's Legion survives.

"Caesar may be dead in body, but in spirit Caesar lives on. In every heart weighed heavy with coldness and a desire for control, Caesar lives. There may never have been a society as 'civilized' but institutionally cruel as Caesar's Legion. Caesar's Legion proudly trumpeted the virtues of injustice and the worthlessness of the individual.

"Many have noted that Caesar's heirs to the East have not learned the lessons we have learned from the Legion. I disagree. The Legion is not a label one can easily slap upon one's enemies. The Legion had a coherent ideology, yes, one centered around control and the dehumanization of its followers.

"Many of the tribals and settlers of the space between the Mojave and the Midwest have kept Legionnaire symbology alive. However, the Legion was a product of the NCR. Caesar was Edward Sallow, an anthropologist.

"Any NCR citizen could be Sallow, given the right lifetime. We would do well to remember that, for as long as injustice and a love of authority over humanity live, Caesar still reigns."

**\- Wren Ferry, "Caesar's Legion - Rise to Fall"**

"The ghoul seemed nice enough, when I first met him. He didn't seem particularly intelligent at first. He talked like an old drunk, with that raspy voice of his. We got him talking, though, and he's a pretty smart cookie. He says he came from the New California Republic.

"He's casual, but I find him charismatic with the way he can tell a winding story. I had no idea who Tandi was, but his stories of her rise to power and eventual fall helped to wile away the nights after the Great Disaster.

"He was staying over with us in our ranch house, and I asked him what he thought of the bombs that'd been detonated a month or so ago. He told me that he thought that it was a problem of human nature. People, he said, were chaotic and stupid. It was only natural that they'd make these kinds of mistakes.

"I found that to be a deeply cynical view, even if he tried to justify it with talk of dialectics and Hegel. I don't think any of us actually understood his rants on Hegel and the others he talked about. I think he just liked the sound of his own voice."

**\- Koe Brigantine to Dana Brigantine, Apocrypha**

"I asked where the ghoul was going, and where he came from. He told me he was from the NCR, but that he was no patriot. Given the Great Disaster's mushroom clouds, I couldn't say I disagreed. Where else could those blasts've come from?

"Still, his reasons for disliking the NCR were just insane. We disliked the NCR for what they were - land-grabbing, smug assholes. The ghoul disliked the NCR for what they claimed to be - democratic and individualist champions of freedom.

"I should probably make clear that he didn't oppose democracy on some kind of military grounds. He disliked it because he genuinely didn't seem to think that it worked. I wonder if something happened to him to make him so bitter.

"The ghoul's been helpful in driving away raiders with that weird displacer glove of his."

**\- Dana Brigantine, Apocrypha**

"Service to the state is the only virtue. Anything else is fluff used to buy elections or kill tribal chiefs. Still, Hegel was right, talking about dialectics. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Carthage, Rome, Imperium Romanum. NCR, Legion, the atomic NCR. The atomic state, the Brotherhood of the East...

"I feel confident in saying that the NCR of today is different to the NCR that I once thought. In many ways, the NCR is analogous - ironically - to the late Roman Republic. Technological superiority, 'defensive' wars of liberation, and an embrace of empire all define this rebuilt power.

"One could say, with little exaggeration, that we are in a position of Pax California here in the West. However, the dialectic conception of history keeps being relevant, and Mongols from the East have come to spread their military system as far as possible.

"Neither faction can survive. I do not consider the Brotherhood to be structured along similar lines to the Legion. They are a military organization, not a state, highly mobile but lacking in culture or society.

"They may have some resemblance to the early stage of civilization that I reached ruling the Legion, but they lack the philosophical, ideological, or societal background to buttress their military power. They have no potential, no room to grow into a real society. They're horse lords. Vertibird lords, maybe.

"I am, however, curious to see where this all ends up. After all, I'm not lacking for time."

**\- Edward "Caesar" Sallow, "Manuscript II" (Unpublished)**


	19. The Nostalgia Party

"The New California Republic will have a challenge when it comes to integrating the Central Texan Republic into the shrinking alliance of NCR allies. The transition from the Austin Star to the Central Texan Republic was popular among bound servants and the lower classes. However, it was also highly disliked by the majority of free Austinites.  
  
"The Austinite Ethics Party, the current ruling party of the CTR, is widely considered to be a Western puppet. Despite being elected on a platform of reconstruction and freedom, the fact that it was installed into power through the contested 2311 election meant that its legitimacy was already in question.  
  
"The fact that the AEP's platform stressed westernization and brotherhood with the NCR did not help matters. Theodore Gale, the newly-dubbed President of the CTR, is stereotyped as being a bird-like man with a slender body and long nose. Cartoons in Austin depict him as a sort of predatory ostrich, which is fairly accurate in terms of how he is perceived by his constituents.  
  
"Gale and the AEP as a whole were increasingly harmed by their targeting of the Austin Rangers. It is hard, as Californians, to see the problem with targeting a group of soldiers and police officers who were known for brutality and crimes against humanity. However, most Austinites have been raised to idolize the Austin Ranger corps as the hand of the law and the last line of defense against the barbarians outside.  
  
"As such, 'reform' efforts and attempts to replace the Austin Rangers with 'People's Police' and the Central Texan Republic Armed Forces appeared to the middle and upper class of Austin as an attempt to gut the very traditions of Austinite society.  
  
"Is it any wonder, then, that the NCR's popularity in the CTR is abysmal? While AEP supremacy could be maintained, it is vanishingly unlikely that AEP supremacy can be obtained without making it clear to the Austinites that their electoral system is a sham managed by Californian espionage.  
  
"It is certainly possible that the process of de-Fascifying the CTR may end up with a free, ethically sound new sister republic to the NCR. However, that will not be the outcome if Gale and his allies in the NCR continue as is."  
  
**\- Dane Cole, "Challenges in Texas", the Boneyard Tribune**  
  
  
  
  
  
"The Austin Star has been subject to nothing less than utter humiliation. The vultures to the west took advantage of our moment of weakness during the war with Rio Grande and Ejercito Mexicano. Even to this day, the NCR uses our territory to stage attacks south and east.  
  
"Where once a thriving community of true Americans stood, now stands only a castrated city. You may have been allowed to keep your produce, your wine, and your knick-knacks. You have not been allowed to keep your empire. They stole it from you, and every day a party of traitors tries to impose their will against the average Joe and Jane.  
  
"The so-called 'Austinite Ethics Party' is little more than a mask that the NCR wears to dominate us. You know this. You're well aware that the government of your people has turned tricks for a foreign power.  
  
"You want payback. You want to set things right.  
  
"So do we.  
  
"You may have heard, in afraid whispers, of the 'Lone Star Party'. You have nothing to fear of them. The Texas Renaissance Party exists for you. The Renaissance Party is for the common man and for the Brahmin baron. The Renaissance Party is for everyone, except for the people who stole our country.  
  
"If you used to know or be a Ranger, the Party is for you. If you hate your votes meaning nothing because you know the ballots are stuffed, the Party is for you. If you don't like Californian planes on Texan soil, the Party is for you. If you want a bigger, better, freer Texan state, the Party is for you.  
  
"If you want Theo Gale gone, well, you know the answer.  
  
"Go to 93 Copper Drive. Books, snacks, and drinks will be provided."  
  
**\- Unknown, "Texas Renaissance Party Flyer"**


	20. Sacking Diamond City

"People get kind of spooked when they hear about the Reject of Poseidon. At least, they do around here. I don't understand why. As long as you play along with its rules and attend to the yearly Brahmin sacrifices, it's largely hands-off.  
  
"Life in the Broken Banks is fairly simple, even if you have to be careful not to tick off the robots. Still, I'm not complaining. It's not like anyone's tried to publish a newspaper down here in a long while. _Publick Occurrences _has done pretty well, here.  
  
"It turns out that people like the news, even if the news is mostly farmers' almanacs and information outside of the Banks.  
  
"What do I think of Diamond City, though? Yeah, I used to live there. You need to get that at the time, it made sense. It was one of the safest places in the entire Commonwealth, bar none.  
  
"City security kept out the raiders and the mutants, and that was honestly about all we needed. It was easy to be a young woman there. It was easy to live. You could almost close your eyes and pretend you weren't surrounded by jackbooted thugs or robotic horrors.  
  
"Now, though, I'm older and wiser, and since the Commonwealth isn't any more stable under the Vertibird blade than it was under the Institute. That's an accomplishment, since the Institute actively tried to destabilize the place.  
  
"I guess it depends on whether you prefer shattered wasteland or a Brotherhood commandery full of insurgents and raiders. Neither seemed great, so I kind of went with the robot cult."  
  
**\- Piper Wright, "Interview with Piper Wright", Publick Occurrences**  
  
  
  
  
  
"My old friends from the Wrath thought I was crazy for signing up to be a Brother. Imagine abandoning the freedom and endless high of the raider's life in exchange for crappy military bullshit. They thought I was insane.  
  
"Look at them now. While they're in fuckin' mass graves, I got the chance to sack Diamond City. I know, right? It sounds impossible. No one could hit the Green Jewel. Or, at least, no raider could. Look at these Brotherhood guys, though. Baseball bats aren't really gonna stop you from getting your face melted with laser weapons.  
  
"Seriously, you haven't lived until you've fired a Vertibird minigun at a horde of screaming settlers and their kids. The one problem with the Brotherhood's been no drugs. That took a lot of Addictol to get out of my system. Luckily, they had the stuff.  
  
"You might have wondered why someone like me would even be allowed to join them in the first place. Basically, what happened was that they needed numbers to keep all the territory they had. So, they quietly lowered requirements for certain areas.  
  
"Besides. I get work done, get paid respectably...It's not so bad. Sure as hell beats living in a ramshackle shithole. Besides, who doesn't like sticky fire?"  
  
**\- Galen "Fishhook" Morrow, "Interview with a Raider Turned Brother", Publick Occurrences**  
  
  
  
  
  
"It started with the Vertibirds. They flew over the city. We all heard what they meant. We didn't run. Sometimes, the Brotherhood can be merciful. We figured that they were out to keep us all safe, like they said. Later, I'd learn that they thought that Diamond City was as much of a threat to their control as the Vitruvians or the Railroad.  
  
"I heard that from that Morrow guy, in his interview. I hope he got fired or shot for that interview for being a public relations nightmare. Frankly, I hope everyone who broke into Diamond City gets shot.  
  
"I hope the people who dropped sticky fire onto the center of the city get shot. I hope the Brotherhood knights who gunned down everyone they could see with a minigun get shot. I hope that the Brotherhood officer who executed everyone who his underlings called a synth get shot.  
  
"I hope the snipers who killed their ways to the upper stands to use them as sniper's nests get shot. I hope that Elder Maxson gets shot. I survived, though. Survived because I was a child, and they thought they could raise me and the others in some warped act of kindness. Even goddamn Takahashi got reprogrammed and sent to who knows where.  
  
"I never forgave them, and I ran from the base I was stationed at as soon as I could. I don't think I ever will forgive them."  
  
**\- Dana Perkins, "Diamond City: A Personal History", Volume III**


End file.
